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live show

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu live in London 2015

This year’s Kyary Pamyu Pamyu concert in London coincided with the Moshi Moshi Nippon Festival. The festival was held in the day time and the concert started at 8 pm.

Moshi Moshi Nippon Festival 2015

The festival opened a few hours before the concert at the Roundhouse in London, with a few stalls showcasing different food and products from Japan. As an added bonus, the original dress from Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s music video Fashion Monster, was on display for everyone to see.

Some of the other stalls were marukome×MOSHI MOSHI NIPPON and Kawaii & Oishii. Appearing on a ministage was a j-pop group called Musubizm, who performed for the public and later on took photos with their fans.

This year’s festival had free admission, which was great for those who just wanted to see the festival in the day time, but didn’t have any tickets to the actual concert in the evening.

After the festival we headed into London, to visit some of our favourite Japanese shops, and to get a bite to eat.

The venue

We joined the queue outside the Roundhouse around 19.15. The queue was very long, but moved quite fast. It was fun seeing so many different sorts of people had turned up for the concert. Of course, lots of Japanese people, cosplayers and lolitas dressed as Kyary, and more.

Before we knew it we were inside the venue, heading upstairs to find our seats. The concert was held at the Roundhouse in London this year, and had both seating and standing. We chose seating this year, which was fine. The only thing I would have liked to change about it was the supporting beams for the roof that were somewhat in the way of the view sometimes.

The show started promptly at 8pm and the crowd went mad when Kyary Pamyu Pamyu appeared on stage.

The show – Crazy Party Night

This year’s show was seat up with a theme around a night at a night club called Crazy Party Night. Joining Kyaryu Pamyu Pamyu on stage were her dancers and her very own DJ who kept the music going all night and playing music for the dancers and entertainment between costume changes.

The stage differed quite a lot from the previous two London concerts, this time the stage was given a more grown up theme with a DJ booth, compared to last time with toys. The stage felt like it has grown with her now that she is old enough to drink and go clubbing.

Kyary played a lot of her new songs this year, but also mixed in all her hit songs from her past albums. Something they did a little bit different this year with one of the tracks, Candy Candy, was to remix part of the song with other music, giving Kyary a chance to really get the crowd going, which we all enjoyed.

The show ended, as all Kyary’s shows have ended in London, with Chan Chaka Chan Chan, with the exception that this time there were lots of confetti shot out over the public.

Trying to pick out which of the songs was my favourite from the concert is always going to be hard, but I did enjoy Candy Candy and one of my favourites – Fashion Monster.

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu – Live in London 2014

We made our way to the O2 Empire Shepherds Bush a couple of hours before the show. We knew it would take a long time to get there because of a major tube strike in most parts of London. We managed to jump on a very cramped bus that would take us over to Shepherds Bush. We seemed to be stuck on that bus forever, passing a lot of stops where other KPP fans were waiting to get on a bus that wasnt full already. I hope they got there in the end.

Making our way there

We arrived in time and not thinking about the queues that might be outside the venue we got a bite to eat. Fed and happy we found our way over to the venue. We had to walk to the end of a very long line to get in, all the way round to the back of the venue, queuing along a residence street. There were two queues going separate ways, one for for the stalls and one for standing. In the queues we saw several girls dressed up to mimic Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s many outfits from her music videos. There were also lots of girls dressed in Lolita clothes and people dressed in other alternative styles. It was a real mixture of people, teens, adults and families with young children. One thing that we all had in common was the love for KPP and her music.

It wasn’t that bad to wait, not compared to last year’s show, where we were had to stand outside in cold rain and snow. At least this time the weather was nice and it was quite warm outside. Everyone was in high spirits as the queues started to move to the doors around 19ish. In no time at all our tickets had been checked and we were in.

Inside the venue

Inside they sold t-shirts, hoodies and scarfs. But we didn’t stop for that, as we were on our way up to the first level to find some seats, because it the tickets were unspecified. We were luckily enough to grab two seats next to one another on the back row with a great view. Most of all the other seats where occupied before we got there and the people that came in after us either had to split up or got standing places, which in a way was good to because there you could dance if you felt like it. Then we waited, with the other 2200 in the sold out venue, for the show to start.

The show

The stage was much more advanced than the previous concert Kyary performed in London. Last time she said she wanted to come back again with a more lavish show, and she kept her promise. The stage was designed as a children’s playroom with storybooks, bulding blocks, popcorn and a big teddy bear. The style suited her perfectly. She also had a large screen on stage, where a video was played during one of the breaks and outfit changes.

Kyary treated us to a show packed with hits like Hitachi, Candy Candy and Tsukematsukeru. The crowd cheered, sang and danced throughout the show, and when she sang the hits Fashion Monster and PonPonPon so it was clear that Kyary Pamyu Pamyu has a very strong fan base in UK.

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Last time Kyary performed in London she only spoke Japanese during the show, and an interpreter translated what she said. But this time she had no interpreter with her. Instead, she spoke a little English, using notes written down on a piece of paper which she read aloud from. She also spoke some Japanese this time too, and judging by the reations of the audience it seemed like most understood what she was saying.

During the show, she wore four different outfits: first she was wearing some kind of furry creation, then she switched to a cute pink dress and bow in her hair. Another change of clothes and now she had a different color of her dress, and an even bigger bow in her hair. The final change of outfit was when she was cheered back on stage again, and now she wore a teeshirt, a skirt and bunny ears. In addition to doing a few more songs, she took the opportunity to have her picture taken with her dancers, and with the audience in the background.

The last song of the evening was Chan Chaka Chan Chan, a perfect song to end the show, with the lyrics going “see you, see you, see you again. See you, see you, see you next time.”

The show started about 20:15. The first song she started with was “PON PON PON” – the song that made her a world wide hit via YouTube.

She would sing about two songs, and then have a chat with the audience and so on. Since KPP does not speak English she had a lady translate for her, which was fine since it wasn’t about understanding the language, it was about understanding the happiness of the music. Along with all the hits and songs from her album, she also sang her new song, Invader Invader, before the song had been released.

Between costume changes there were different videos being shown on a large screen. One was from a TV show she has back in Japan called TV John, and other videos were facts about KPP. Even a mascot of hers came out and danced and entertained the audience.

KPP fans are dedicated and a lot of people in the audience knew the lyrics to her songs and sang along. People were dancing and clapping along to the music. It was a great atmosphere!

The show ended about 21:45 with a encore of one more song or so. After that it was a rush for the tube and change for our last train back home.

If you are a fan of KPP I would recommend the chance to see her live. Do so and you won’t be disappointed.

We arrived at the O2 Academy in Islington about 18:20 and the queues were already very long. This show was billed to start at 20:00 and the doors where to open at 19:00. So we started to make our way to the back of the queue, while passing all of the fans that had dressed up as KPP, and others who came in cosplay and Harajuku style of clothing. It was a mixture of all ages, waiting to get in for the show. A lot of people passing by stopped and asked what everyone was queuing for. With all the cosplay and Harajuku clothing, the queue sure did look spectacular.

We found the end of the queue and took our place. It was a long and cold wait, it even started to snow! While we were waiting there were different TV crews from Japanese TV shows interviewing those that stood and waited in-line. Here is the video:

In the end the queue started to moved. I think we got inside around 19:50, and even though we had been waiting that long, it seemed worth it. It’s not every day you get to see a Japanese pop star on the other side of the world! We felt like we were the lucky ones. We found an ok place to stand in the venue, so we could just about see, since everyone in front of us were tall for some reason. Why is it always like that when you go to concerts? You always get the tall people in front of you!

Ticket release for London show

I thought I would share how it was to see Kyary Pamyu Pamyu when she did a live concert in London in February earlier this year.

We were one of the lucky 800+ people to get tickets. It was pure luck that we got the tickets, really. I was searching her name on Google to find more about when her up and coming tour would be, because I knew that she was coming to Europe to have two show in Belgium and France, and we had decided we wanted to go and see at least one of them. But by luck, I found out via Google that she was to have a show in London, and I found that out only the day before tickets went on sale. So I got up early to buy the tickets the next day and I got a hold of two. It was only after the tickets went on sale that the KPP Facebook page had made a post about it, and by then it was too late for a lot of people, because even though there were no real adverts for it, they sold out quick. I dont think they were expecting that!

Getting to London

Travelling over from Sweden to London was not a problem, since we have family there. No need for a hotel, plus we got to have a mini holiday in the UK, which was nice.

The day of the show we travelled up to London by train. We decided to have a mini Japan day, so we went around few of the different Japanese shops that we know of that sell all things Japanese. We also had Japanese lunch in china town. After that we spent the rest of the afternoon just looking around some of London’s shops before heading to Islington o2 Academy…

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